At a business meeting, I refused to let one of the men in attendance take control of the meeting I was chairing. We had an exchange of words, and, when he didn’t get his way, he walked out of the meeting. I was glad I hadn’t been intimidated or allowed him to take control as he has been known to do in similar meetings.
It wasn’t until a couple hours later that I saw that I handled the situation the way my mother would have handled it. Seeing my actions that way made me realize I have to ask myself in the future: If my mother were here, how would she handle this?
My mother was abusive in her relationships with people. Not all people, but selected family members and many of the authority figures she encountered over the years. People who challenged her were particularly vulnerable.
I never wanted to be like my mother. And, yet, at that meeting, I handled the man who opposed me just as my mother would have handled him. It would be easy to say that’s just the way I am, and excuse my behavior that way. Or I could say that my behavior is excusable because I don’t know any better. The fact is, I do know better. As an adult, I don’t have any excuses. As an adult, I am responsible for my actions.
My mother and I didn’t have an easy relationship. Early in my life, I thought the problem was me. I was told it was me, that I was a bad child. As I grew older, I saw there were many people who received the same treatment as I did and the reasons were much the same. They stood in the way of something my mother wanted or they refused to do what she wanted them to do. Or, she just didn’t like them regardless of their actions.
After her death, her brother told me of the abusive childhood he and she shared. The memories were served up as reasons why my mother acted the way she did throughout her life. Why she continued the abuse into her family. It was the way she was brought up. She didn’t know any better. It was a survival instinct.
Those excuses work for a child. They don’t work for an adult. Adults have choices. Adults who are abusive have chosen to be abusive. There are other ways I could have handled that meeting. Ways that would have been more in keeping with the person I choose to be, the adult I think I am. More in keeping with the person I thought I was.
I owed that man an apology and I apologized for my behavior the next time we met.